


The Bird and The Spider

by robot870



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Bad Ending, Monster Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Monster Martin Blackwood, but there's a certain upset to knowing who they used to be, fearpocalypse, feeding the entities, pretty gentle as far as the rest of the fears in the show go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24204427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robot870/pseuds/robot870
Summary: A legend passed down among the survivors of the fearpocalypse.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan Sims
Comments: 5
Kudos: 108





	The Bird and The Spider

There's something roaming the broken world with too many eyes and it's looking for you.

Not just you, the first person. Whoever that refers to. It's looking for anyone. The thing is easy to locate - the eyes in the sky all turn to watch wherever it goes - but it's impossible to escape. There really isn't any use in running. It plods along on six legs, twenty talons digging into the earth with each calculated step. It looks at you. All of you. It looks and it Sees everyone and everything that exists and doesn't exist. It wants to know more.

If if sets its sights on you specifically there is no way of shaking it off your trail. It's not ravenous and slavering like those beasts that hunt in packs, but it doesn't quite have that eternal patience of the skull-faced beings shrouded in red filaments. It's still hungry. It's always hungry. It won't eat your body, no, that's the job of the shambling mounds of squealing and mooing and crowing flesh. It won't burn you, or send you shooting off into the sky, or trap you in a tunnel underground. It will simply walk up to you and ask:

_"What do you know?"_

And it will all come pouring out. You can't stop it. The creature can't stop it, even if it would ever want to. Something in its expression says it did, at some point. That it was a person like you once, and it was guilty, and it wanted to stop. But it's much too far gone now for it to truly care. Its birdlike face blinks, the whole thing all at once. You're not sure what is an eye and what isn't. There's not really such a thing as "is" or "isn't" anymore. You talk and you live your worst experiences over again, and it drinks them in like it hasn't had a meal in years. You'll learn later that at some point this thing only took one experience, only one strange occurrence it would neatly file and categorize and examine. It's hard to imagine something like this holding itself back that much. The memories come one after the other, painfully eloquent, sometimes even in a language you don't speak. It all makes sense to the creature. It's all valuable and filling and satisfying. It's food. You're feeding it. It is so hungry.

After you feed it, it will walk away again, plodding slowly and with purpose. Something will shift on its back, a segmented, hairy leg reaching out to stroke its face. You are lucky if it does not come down from its perch.

If you are running too much, or hiding, or otherwise proving too difficult, it will begin its descent from the creature's dark, shaggy-feathered back. It's a spider, a big fuzzy one, that could be almost cute if you let it. It moves carefully, gently in a way, making sure not to dig its claws into its companion's flesh. It will walk up to you and you will not be able to run. It will look at you with only eight eyes and ask you:

_"Why are you doing this?"_

And you will not have an answer. It will get closer and you will still not be able to move. It will wrap its legs around you, and it will smell like your childhood dog's fur after playing in a freshly raked pile of leaves. It will feel like you have just drank the most satisfying, comforting hot beverage possible, and you will give in. You won't remember anything after that.

Some say that's better than having to deal with the nightmares the larger creature causes, but the whole world is a nightmare now. Instead of the harrowing, avian face appearing in your dreams to watch you through a randomly selected reliving of your worst moments, you'll get the same dream every night. It's different for each person. Sometimes it's sitting by a hospital bed with a shadow laying on it, still, for what feels like months. Others experience the feeling of dissipating, leaving the world but then being brought back in just as it's ending. The spider's dreams are worse, in a way, because they're not yours, and never will be. The spider makes it clear, they are his, and he is using you to compartmentalize. You are not food. You are a tool.

  
If you see the eyes in the sky all turn to look at something, don't run. It will only draw attention to you. Just know, and prepare, and maybe try to make peace with your inner demons before either of the creatures use them to feed their gods, or ease their minds. They are hungry and tired, just like you, but they do not have limits. Not anymore.


End file.
